I'd rather be having a quiet drink... and can be followed on Twitter @alcothusiast; and friended on Untappd (handle: "neilcake" - all welcome).

Sunday, 19 January 2014

Poker Night... Part 3

Happy Sunday, everybody! You join me today as I reminisce on
another poker night that I really should have told you about earlier, but life
got in the way. So without further prevarication, I give you... poker night part 3.

Another Saturday, another poker event, another haze of drunken
tomfoolery, and very good it was too – and not just because I won two of the
rounds and finished second in the other. To be fair, I should have won that one
too, but I got a bit carried away on the penultimate hand and betted when I
should have gotten out.

Poker sure is fun, and we had a great old laugh, but one of
the things I look forward to at least as much as the poker and the laughter… is
the booze. I almost said there that it is an unwritten rule that you need to
bring some special hard liquor with you, but frankly not everyone does. David
brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate his new job appointment and a bottle
of RuaVieja – which oddly enough has featured on these pages before(twice in fact) while Chris
and Dave just took care of cider for themselves. I decided on a few bottles of
whisky for everyone to try – Jim McEwan’s Symphony No 1, a blend which
continues to go down very nicely, a Glenmorangie Original that I hadn’t opened
yet, and… the one I’d been waiting to open for about a month… the Suntory
Hakushu 12.

I’d also requested that Dave collect a few bottles of Double
Maxim from his local Morrison’s, which he was kind enough to do.

So it was straight in with a beer, and the beginning of the
poker.

The first game always seems to be a bit cagey, as the
various players try to feel out the parameters – how cautious should you be?
What effect are the specific blinds going to have? What are the playing styles
of each player?

I won the first two or three hands, and it was looking good.
We all betted cautiously, but I started to grow bolder as I saw that I seemed
to be the only one getting decent hands. Chris was folding almost straight away
every time, and Dave was bluffing when he had absolutely nothing. He won one or
two like that though, and in the end it came down to me and him.

I’d almost finished my second beer by this point, had
started a glass of the Symphony (no 1! 46% ABV), and was alternating sips of
that with gulps of David’s champagne. So as we reached the closing stages of
the first game, I realised I was on the way to being drunk – this was before
dinner, of course. Three to four pints of water were in order.

That worked a treat, but not quick enough to prevent me
betting big on the penultimate hand when I had nothing. A minute or two after
that it was all over, and I knew it had all been my fault.

After popping out to the local curry house for tea, I went
on to win games two and three [bit of
poetry there for you]. I can’t recall any details about these, but I know
there was a great deal of raucous laughter and smutty humour. I haven’t laughed
so much and so heartily in a long time. David tells me that as we were clearing
up afterwards, Chris mistook pictures of playing cards on the box of the poker
set for real cards, and tried to pick them up. He then put on his glasses and
went to sleep on the sofa. Dave and I joked that he had put on his glasses so
that he could see his dreams better.

Game two was preceded by the opening of the Glenmorangie
Original, which is 40% ABV, and 10 years old . I’d only tried this once before,
and hadn’t been impressed, but there was a possibility the contents of that
bottle had been compromised over time, since I was told the cork had atrophied.
My bottle was an impulse buy when I saw it at £6 off on a trip to Tesco. I was
never going to pay full price, and that discount gave me just enough incentive
to give it a go. At first taste it seemed thin and uninteresting, but since the
poker night in question was some time ago now, I can inform you that it became
an example of another single malt that I came to enjoy more thoroughly by the
glass.

It is fruity and sweet, and one that I’d encourage you to
pick up if you see it on a £25 offer again. I probably will. It scores a
remarkable 94 in Jim Murray’s 2013 Whisky Bible, though I wouldn’t quite rate it that highly.

The nose revealed pleasing orange notes while the palate
brought sherbet and sweet, sweet barley. Far from being something to write off
as an everyday drink, it came to be a treat that I actually preferred most
times to the Talisker 10 (read more about that in the coming weeks), that I
picked up the next time Tesco had
some offers on. It doesn’t place all that highly on the all time single malt
rankings, but for a malt at the very lower end of the price spectrum it punches
way above its weight.

Back to the poker night, and finally it was the moment I’d
been waiting for: the opening of the Suntory Hakushu 12 (43% ABV). I had toyed
with the idea of not bringing this along at all, since my bottle of Maker’s Mark
had lasted only two poker nights, proving so popular that people just inhaled
it. Nevertheless, what’s the point in buying something a bit special if you
keep it to yourself? (and anyway, the faster you drink it, the sooner you can
buy something else…)

Suntory is the oldest Japanese distiller, and actually owns
three distilleries – Yamazaki, Hibiki and Hakushu – each producing their own
highly regarded single malts. I’ve tried the Hibiki once before, but this was
my first purchase of an actual bottle of Japanese malt, a decision I took based
on reviews and scoring from a number of experts and review sites.

The bottle certainly looks the part, but I was a little
disappointed to find that it is sealed by a screwcap – a better class of screwcap, I’ll grant you, than
the standard one you get with a blended scotch, but still… this is a single
malt - and I was hoping to hear that
sound I love so much – you know the one; the squeak and the pop.

Luckily, the contents make up for that one moment of denial.
I know Japanese whisky is renowned for its quality, and here I can see why. It
reminds me a little of my favourite malt, Caol Ila – though I don’t think it’s quite
as good as that. Even so, it reaches a pretty high standard. There’s a lot
going on, with a good deal of complexity and drinkability, so was looking
forward to getting to know it a little better over the next few months before I
come to decide what I’m going to get next.

If you’re looking for some amateurish tasting notes, I’d say
it’s soft and fruity on the palate, with a little bit of peat and a slightly
bitter finish – which is where it fails against the Caol Ila.

In the end, Suntory Hakushu 12 did not develop into the
favourite dram that my over excitable anticipatory gland hoped it might be.
Sure, it was fresh, clean and sweet but that bitter finish continued to let it
down. It was however my second favourite out of 5 when it made an appearance at
the Manchester Whisky Club’s Japanese Whisky Night. It remains to be seen what
that says about Japanese whisky in general. I remain keen to try more and, as
ever, look forward to the next poker night.

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.